Talk:singulative

Not setting a good example

The example sentence given is:

'The singulative of cattle is head.'

Whilst this is a grammatically correct sentence, it is factually wrong. According to the Wikipedia article Singulative number,

'English has no productive process of forming singulative nouns (just phrases such as "a grain of rice"). Therefore, English cannot be said to have singulative number.'

In my opinion, it would be better to give as an example a sentence which is both grammatically and factually correct. That might be something like:

'In Welsh, "moch" means "swine" or "pigs", and its singulative "mochyn" means "pig". Where English speaks of "pig meat" (using the singular form "pig"), Welsh speaks of "cig moch" - literally, "swine flesh" (using the collective form "moch").'

Of course, a shorter and simpler example than mine would be better! yoyo 14:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Everything you say is true, but the definition is not limited to the formation of a single-word noun singulative. It also allows for "constructions", which are the only way to illustrate the phenomenon using only English words as is our wont here at en.wikt. DCDuring TALK 11:37, 6 March 2009 (UTC)